an act that's all
by Whas'up
Summary: On the third night of the 72nd Hunger Games, Effie Trinket saves Haymitch's life.


"What happened to the real Effie Trinket?"

She pointed her gaze at him, blue eyes cold in the fire light, so different from what they were before, "I'm the only Effie Trinket you've ever known," she responded, there was a hardness to her voice, a strength he'd never heard before in all the years he'd known her.

What was there to say to that? He turned to the fire.

"She's dead," she surprised him by saying; he didn't remove his gaze from the burning logs.

"You killed her?" he asked, did he even care about the girl he'd apparently never known?

She stood, movement abrupt, but familiar, her right hand rising before the rest of her, fingers curled delicately, like a dancer flowing.

She walked away from him.

* * *

_Both the reaped children had died in the bloodbath, which left very little for Haymitch to do, a Mentor without a Mentees._

_What's a man to do?_

_He's not quite drunk when she comes to him._

_And so he notices the urgency in her steps._

_He is drunk enough however to miss the way her face has hardened into a carefully neutral blank expression._

_"Hey there, sweetheart," he greets when she is still rather a bit aways, he calls out to her loudly, waving a hand sloppily in the air._

_Effie weaves around a few more people, she does not respond until she stops in front of him, she bends down, her face level with his, "Come with me now," she says, and normally such a demand would elicit a ferocious response, but her voice, it's different, lower, serious, fucking deadly almost._

_His eyes snap up, taking in the tightness around her eyes, the unsmiling mouth, and so he stands, confusion coloring his face as she grabs onto the sleeve of his rumpled jacket, pulling on him._

_And though he's curious about what's prompted such impoliteness from Effie, he can hardly be expected to put up with her frankly abrasive treatment for long, they're about two steps from the door when he wrenches his arm free from her grasp._

_He hadn't thought he was drunk enough yet to have so little control of his legs, but wrong he was as he crashes into the desert table, spilling several platefuls of chocolate cake to the ground. He laughs as eyes turn towards them. Effie will be mortified, she'll smile and wave and pretend not to have a care in the world as her Capital buddies look on with noses upturned._

_But it doesn't happen. The laughter dies on his lips._

_The strange expression on her face never wavers as she yanks him back upright, paying no mind to her Capital cohorts as she stomps through the door._

_Once they are in the hall and headed fast towards the elevator does she say anything, she glances at him and then away, "We have three hours to get out of the city," she says, quiet and calm, like this is a normal thing for her to say._

_He flounders, "What?" he spits, eyes incredulous._

_At the elevator she regards him, "I said, we have three hours to gather supplies and escape the city."_

_"What?" he says again. _

* * *

She'd returned with mud on her boots and blood on her knife.

She sat heavily on the ground.

"Yes, I killed her."

He waited silently; he sipped from his canteen for something to do.

But she didn't say anything else.

* * *

_The elevator doors sweep open; she doesn't look away from him as she steps inside. One hand reaches out to stall the doors when he doesn't follow, "Come with me now," she says, "I can't wait for you."_

_Well this has got to be a goddamn joke, "What are you talking about?" he hisses, angry for a reason he can't quite articulate._

_"Please, Haymitch," she's pleading with him._

_He doesn't move._

_She pulls her hand away from the door, frown marring her features as she regards his rage filled eyes, and it feels like a goodbye all of a sudden, like she's let him go when her hand curls away. The doors are already gliding shut when he shoots his arm out, pushing them violently open again, unmindful of the vaguely dissatisfied ding the machine makes in protest. "What the fuck are you talking about, huh?" _

_"Come with me," she says again._

_He trudges into the elevator._

* * *

"So what's your name then?" he asked.

The soft crunching sound of her footfalls stopped a few paces away, when he looked towards her the sun had caught in her golden hair, it's blinding.

"Just call me Effie," she finally answered.

* * *

_They're headed fast through the city, dark clothes to blend into dark shadows, it's the first time he's ever seen Effie wear black, or boots, it's the first time he's ever seen her without a wig._

_A part of him still thinks this is a joke, an elaborate fucking joke, but he follows behind her, quiet as they pass by the outskirts of the public squares where the rainbow colored crowd cheer and laugh and sing for the deaths of children._

_"Where are we going?" he asks, shifting the strap of the large bag that is slung over his shoulder. _

_"There's a gap in the sensor net," she says, and it's only now that he hears how her accent is fading, melting away as if it had never been. "On the southern wall, we'll get through there."_

_She has a watch on her wrist; she looks at it every five steps._

_"How the hell do you know that?" he spits._

_Her gloved hand reaches behind, towards him, without really thinking it through he clasps it in his own, and squeezes it. They don't stop their hurried steps._

_"Trust me, Haymitch."_

_And he does, he fucking does._

* * *

Where are they going?

Where is she from?

Why?

For fucks sake, why?

And she won't answer him.

She won't give him one straight answer.

And he screamed at her and yelled but she was calm, it enraged him more.

"Just trust me, Haymitch."

He wanted to, for a reason he wouldn't name, he did want to, but he looked into cold blue eyes, at a frowning mouth and the white knuckled grip she had on the rifle and he couldn't…he couldn't, not anymore. "Hell, sweetheart, I don't even know you."

She tugged on his coat, dislodged the flakes of snow that had been resting there, and crashed her chapped lips to his own.

Haymitch grabbed at her shoulders, held her against him as she pushed him against a tree.

Sometime later he was panting and, yeah his dick was hard, but his feet were cold inside his boots and his chapped lips were burning so he let her go when she stepped back.

"No," she told him, shaking her head, "no, you don't."

* * *

_He hears them, but can't saw them._

_The planes._

_A loud boom reverberates through the air; the dying leaves above them rustle against each other._

_Effie covers her eyes, as they turn to look at the Capital, bright like a beacon in the night, awash with colors that leach into the very sky above it. It is beautiful, he admits._

_And then in a moment it's gone, lights flicker, three massive explosions rip through the three tallest structures and they're tumbling down, the ground quivers beneath his feet as his jaw drops._

_He can hear the screams from where he stands._

_Effie is already walking away._

* * *

Disclaimer: man I don't own nothing


End file.
